After SWIFT – sudden EU-US data protection agreement consultation

Lately the Commission, the Council and the US administration have been as busy lobbying the SWIFT / TFTP agreement on rendering financial data from the European Union to the United States as they previously were anxious to keep the European Parliament in the dark. Not that the quality of information seems to have improved despite turning on the volume.



The European Parliament has informed us about the 29 to 23 vote of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) to propose rejection: SWIFT: MEPs to vote on backing or sacking EU/US data sharing deal (5 February 2010).

I wonder why the 23 who voted for breaching EU data protection standards have been so silent about their reasons.


The Euroblogosphere has actively debated the SWIFT agreement and the muscular diplomacy employed, for instance: Henrik Alexandersson, Henrik Alexandersson, Netzpolitik, Henrik Alexandersson, Julien Frisch, Henrik Alexandersson, Thomas Mayer, Jon Worth, Europaeum, Julien Frisch, Open Europe Blog, Sköne Oke.



Suddenly



Suddenly, after keeping the European Parliament and the EU citizens in the dark for so long about the SWIFT agreement, the European Commission’s DG Freedom, Security and Justice has launched an online consultation on the future European Union (EU) - United States of America (US) international agreement on personal data protection and information sharing for law enforcement purposes. The consultation runs until 12 March 2010.

I wonder.





Ralf Grahn







P.S. The BBC’s Europe editor Gavin Hewitt writes a blog, which presents European politics to readers in Britain and worldwide.

Gavin Hewitt’s Europe is listed on multilingual Bloggingportal.eu, which has now grown to 532 great Euroblogs.

Bloggingportal.eu is your useful one-stop-shop for fact, opinion and gossip on EU affairs, i.a. politics, more than thirty policy areas, communication, economics, finance, business, civil society and law.

At the same time Euroblogs are an agreeable way to brush up one’s skills in foreign languages.

If you are interested in the EU or the euroblogosphere, you can also subscribe to the RSS feed for new blog posts appearing on Bloggingportal.eu.

By the way, I also discuss European issues, including the relations between the EU and Switzerland, in Finnish on Eurooppaoikeus and in Swedish on Grahnblawg.

Freedom to travel for Schengen migrants on long-stay visas

The current situation has led to thousands of complaints, says the European Parliament rapporteur Carlos Coelho.




The Grahnlaw blog post Schengen residents with long-stay visa: Proposals on freedom to travel (3 February 2010) mentioned the travel restrictions on legally residing migrants with a national long-stay visa. We also mentioned the Regulations proposed by the European Commission in COM(2009) 90 final and COM(2009) 91 final to enable these expats with “D visas” to travel inside the Schengen area.


The proposals have now advanced in the European Parliament to the stage where the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) is set to adopt its report today, based on the draft prepared by Carlos Coelho (rapporteur):



Draft report PE430.461 on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement and Regulation (EC) No 562/2006 as regards movement of persons with a long-stay visa (COM(2009)0091 – C6 0076/2009 – 2009/0028(COD))



The other draft report is PE430.459 on the proposal for a Council regulation amending the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement as regards long stay visa and alerts in the Schengen Information System (COM(2009)0090 – C6 0107/2009 – 2009/0025(CNS)).

Here the procedure will probably change from consultation to the ordinary legislative procedure, due to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty.


Concerning both proposals the rapporteur noted the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, as well as the “omnibus Communication” being prepared with regard to the new legal bases. He also expressed uncertainty whether the national Parliaments have yet to be consulted and granted an 8 weeks period to react on the files which are pending at the moment when the Treaty of Lisbon comes into force.


We may be somewhat wiser with regard to the possible amendments and the procedures after the LIBE meeting today.

Anyway, improvements seem to be on their way for legal migrants on long-stay visas.




Ralf Grahn






P.S. Cross-border communication about European issues is important for our future, and Euroblogs offer an enjoyable way to improve our language skills.

Eva Peña in Barcelona writes expertly and critically about the challenges of the European Union and the EU politics of Spain on Eva en Europa (in Spanish).

Perhaps inspired by the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union, bloggers in Spain can now be found on a new aggregator Europeando.eu, with posts in Spanish, Catalan and Galician.

Eva en Europa is listed among 522 great Euroblogs (at the latest count) on growing multilingual Bloggingportal.eu, your useful one-stop-shop for fact, opinion and gossip on European affairs: politics, more than thirty policy areas, communication, economics, finance, business, civil society and law.

If you are interested in the EU or the euroblogosphere, you can also subscribe to the RSS feed for new blog posts appearing on Bloggingportal.eu.

By the way, I also discuss European issues in Finnish on Eurooppaoikeus and in Swedish on Grahnblawg.